Seeking Pack Redemption (5 page)

Trent
shifted. “Yeah, I think I have that answer. He was looking for fresh meat.”

“You? Ha,
like anyone would catch you off guard,” Marc scoffed.

Trent
looked at his toes, the sky, not willing to admit aloud his ignoble
capture
.

Darren
punched him in the arm. “Holy fuck, someone did get the drop on him. How? Did
they distract you with a hot chick?”

“Silver
shot in the ass,” he mumbled, “followed by a tranquilizer dart.”

“Ouch, my
man. Turn around and let us see.” Marc laughed. “When I said we should get some
scars, I was talking about manly ones, not new holes in your ass.”

Trent
shoved his friend. “Fuck off. This isn’t funny. And that reminds me, there’s a
pair of hillbillies we need to catch, because if they’re in cahoots with this
Roderick prick, then they might have info.”

Cracking
his knuckles, Darren smiled. “Then let’s go find ourselves some rednecks.”

Without
further ado, Darren and Marc shifted, one with a thick dark coat, the other,
russet. They glanced at him as if asking, “What are you waiting for?”

Trent eyed
the stranger and impulsively asked, “Are you coming with us?”

“After
knowing I betrayed my pack and my mate, you would trust me to work with you?”

“I never
said I trusted you, but we’re both looking for the same target, so I’d be an
idiot to not take all the help I can. Just so you know, though, fuck me over
and I’ll kill you myself.”

“And just
so you know,”
Jaxon
said, a smile ghosting around his
lips, “if you turn into an evil puppet wolf with red eyes, I’ll keep your fur
as a rug.”

Their
laughter rang through the woods. A dark mirth, but still, after a month of
inaction, it felt good to be doing something, even if Trent planned to do it
with a madman.

Thea
didn’t know how long she’d existed in this prison. All she knew was
Hell couldn’t be any worse than this. She often lamented the stupid need for a
chocolate bar that drove her from the safety of her apartment to the corner
store down the street. She played the what-if game in her head. What if she’d
eaten the crystalized ice cream in her freezer instead? Or made some cookie
dough? Or gone to bed? Would she be living this nightmare if she’d just
resisted the urge for chocolate? Would David still have snapped? And if he hadn’t,
would she be living in her apartment with her possessed boyfriend, oblivious,
but safe?

Judging by
the madman who held her captive—a psycho who controlled her former lover—nothing
would have saved her. And she didn’t doubt his mocking words when the creature
with red eyes and the sharp teeth claimed no one would ever find her.

The shock
of her capture along with the discovery that monsters existed—vampires
and werewolves and evil, oh my—should have made her lose the baby. Given
her captivity and hopeless situation, she almost prayed for it.

But God
didn’t hear her. Instead, force-fed daily and exercised by wolves who nipped at
her heels to keep her walking in circles around a dirt yard under a sky laden
with stars, the baby grew, rounding out her stomach. She cupped her abdomen during
the day, crying herself to sleep, praying for help. Locked in a moldy room with
the windows boarded too tightly to let even a hint of light in, she despaired.

Who will find me? Does anybody care enough to even
look?
Thea
hated these questions most of all, because with her
parents dead and the rest of her family in Greece, strangers really, other than
her landlord, who would give a damn?

The lonely
answer hurt, and she suffered even if no one physically harmed her. Lacking the
power to do anything, she resorted to what she could. She tried to stop eating,
the only method she could think of to escape. The vampire had her
tied down, naked on a bed, thighs
spread in offer. He brought in strangers, men whose eyes sparked with
maliciousness or regarded her with blank apathy. Roderick gave her one warning.
“Eat, or I’ll let them fuck you.” To emphasize his threat, he let their dirty,
calloused hands touch her. She begged for food in under a minute, the horror of
his promise too much for her to bear.

“I thought
you’d see my way,” he cackled. Roderick delighted in her captive state,
detailing what he would do to her once he no longer needed her to bear the
children who would form his army. He loved to show off his power and often
marched in his minions, forcing them to do
his
will. He humiliated them,
then
laughed as she cringed.
Most didn’t seem to care and eagerly obeyed his every decree. Weak cowards. Who
cared if they clucked like a chicken or licked the floor for the vampire’s
entertainment?

The ones
she hated seeing most were the ones who tried to fight
his
command.

“I’ve brought you a surprise, my breeding whore,”
Roderick said as his men dragged in a stranger. Tall and dark-haired, even with
the bruises on his face, he appeared handsome—and defiant. “Meet
Harrison. I’m about to teach him a new way of life. Kneel before your master,
dog.”

“Fuck you,” said the oblivious newcomer. He even
had the nerve to spit on Roderick, which had her silently cheering. Seconds
later, he screamed on the floor as he tore at his own flesh, dragging his nails
in sharp rivulets over his skin. Over and over, Roderick demanded the stranger
kneel and accept his word as law. The man screamed instead. It seemed like an
eternity, but was less than ten minutes before Harrison, head hanging,
blubbered, “I live to serve, master.”
So much for his pride.

Or how
about Jeremy? He lasted longer than most, in other words, he defied Roderick
for more than fifteen minutes.

“Crawl to me, dog. Lick my boots, and maybe I’ll
let you live.”

“Bite me, you fucking undead freak.”

A flick of the vampire’s hands sent Jeremy to his
knees screaming.

“Crawl and kiss the feet of the one who owns you,”
Roderick again commanded.

“Never! I won’t be a slave.” Brave words that
lasted about another hundred heartbeats while Roderick stared him down with his
eerie red gaze. When Jeremy, wheezing and crying finally slid across the floor
and slobbered over Roderick’s feet, the monster laughed. And laughed.

The sound
of his mirth often haunted her nightmares.

Those
small spurts of bravery by newcomers pissed her off most of all because they
gave her hope that someone could fight Roderick’s control and rescue her. Kill
the bastard who did this. It didn’t happen. They all let her down, succumbing
to the vampire’s will. Cowards. Illogical and unfair of her, yet she couldn’t
help despising them for failing.

The one she
abhorred most of all, though, the one she would never forgive, was David.
This is
all his
fault.

As one of
her captors, David often served her food, but no matter how she pled, he didn’t
respond in any way. There existed
a blankness
in his
eyes, a jerkiness to his previously smooth movements. He was no longer the shy
man she fell in love with, but a shell, a shell possessed by
him.
Roderick.
Vampire
and monster.
The one who loved to hear her beg and cry and
scream.
The one who hurt her without laying a hand on
her.
The one who watched with an unholy hunger . .
.

Despair
became her only friend. Caught in a never-ending nightmare, she retreated into
her mind, not speaking to anyone. Not reacting to Roderick’s games. She just
floated along, waiting for it to end, or so she thought until the well of
resentment and frustration boiled over.

As part of
his never-ending cruel joke, Roderick had David care for her. Actually, more
like a robot
who
wore his body and did his chores in
absolute silence, neither happy nor sad. Not angry or confused. He did what he was
ordered to. Until the day she snapped at him.

“How can
you let him do this to me?” she screamed. “To our child.” She grabbed his hand
and shoved it under her shirt, placing it against her rounded tummy. She barely
felt the flutter of movement, but a shudder went through him.

For the
first time since her capture, David looked her straight in the eye. His
chiseled features and soft brown eyes still so handsome it seemed sacrilegious
in this hellhole of a place. It seemed wrong that he remained attractive in the
face of what he’d done. With his hand still on her stomach, his gaze turned so
sad her lower lip trembled. This was the David she remembered. The one she’d
fallen in love with a lifetime ago.

“Please,
David. You need to get us out of here.”

Moisture
pooled in his eyes. He licked his lips and spoke to her finally, only a handful
of sentences, imbued with more meaning than anything she’d ever heard. “There
is nothing to excuse what I did. I wish we’d never met, that I’d never hurt you.
I wish I could have been stronger. If you ever escape, look for my brother,
Trent. He’ll give you anything you need. I am so sorry,” he said in a voice
that broke on the last word.

What was
he sorry for? That he lacked the ability to save her? That he kidnapped her? Or
that he was too scared to fix what he’d done wrong? “Don’t be sorry. Help us,
dammit. For the love of our unborn child, do something!”

“I can’t.”
His cowardly reply didn’t surprise her, but it still hurt.

“Can’t or
won’t?”

“He’ll
hurt me if I try. I’m sorry,
Thea
. I never wanted
this to happen. Please don’t hate me.”

Looking
upon him, she noted the things she’d striven to ignore when they first met. While
David appeared rugged on the outside, he wasn’t the most assertive of men. It
wasn’t that he was a wimp, he could probably hold his own in a fight, but he
complained a lot. Instead of making an effort to change the things that bugged
him, like his job, he bitched and moaned. It was a quality
Thea
found most unattractive.
I like people
who know how to take responsibility for
themselves
.
Who know how to stand up for what they believe in and fight for
it.
To be their own man or woman.
David
failed in all respects.

Once,
she’d felt a spark for him. Love. But it wasn’t enough for her to forgive him.
His refusal to act and to do the right thing damned him. So despite his plea
that she not
hate
him—and his unspoken one
asking for forgiveness—she remained silent, and his head drooped. Let him
suffer; it couldn’t come close to what she experienced.

Head bowed,
feet shuffling, he moved away, but before he could exit the room, he halted. A
cool breeze entered, its chill touch making her back away. She knew what it
meant. Night had fallen, and Roderick watched.

Pivoting
on one foot, David faced her, except David was no longer home. The puppet
cocked its head, the red pinprick in his eyes still uncanny even after all this
time. “Wasn’t that touching? Or not. I can’t say I blame you for not giving him
forgiveness. Did he happen to mention that the only reason he ever went to meet
you was so he could get you in bed? My doing, I admit. See, I learned something
interesting with my other dormant experiments. It only works with a mated pair.”

Her brow
crinkled as the creature spoke to her. “What works?” she asked.

“In order
for a dormant wolf to get pregnant with a pup, she needs to have two things.
The first you don’t remember, but I assure you, you screamed deliciously. The
second is she needs to be properly mated so that her wolf can stir. Simple
really. But it has to be a true mating, not just any wolf bite will do. I
actually threw a few of my flock your way, hoping for a match, but you ignored
them all until pretty boy here.”

“What are
you talking about? I’m not a wolf like your other freaks.”

“Such conviction,
and yet so wrong. Look at the evidence. I’d say the results prove otherwise.”

“What
evidence?”

“The child
you carry.
One of the first to form my new army.
I
must say
,
I am surprised you went for yellow-belly
David over here. I expected you to hold out for one of my stronger subjects.”

“So you
planned this from the beginning?” she replied, bitter at the manipulation of
her life.

“Planned,
watched, and even participated. You didn’t even notice the times I went along
for a ride. You’re a bit quiet for my taste, though.”

Her
stomach heaved at the knowledge. She clapped a hand to her mouth and shook her
head, trying to deny it.

David’s
mouth tightened in displeasure, but it was Roderick who spoke using his voice.
“Bitch. If I weren’t concerned about you losing the babe, I’d take you again,
but this time I’d make you scream.”

“Never.”

The word
didn’t come from
Thea
, and her expression of surprise
surely mirrored that on David’s face. The red in his eyes was gone, and he
trembled.